In an existing e-commerce system, a user may open a shop on the Internet, log in and manage the online shop through a registered account. Through this account for logging in and managing the online shop, the user may also log in an instant messaging system (IM), such as AliWangWang, to communicate with a buyer, and create one or more auxiliary accounts with corresponding passwords in the instant messaging system. Users of the auxiliary accounts can also communicate with buyers who conduct businesses with the online shop.
If a user creates an account for an online shop, the account is saved in an online shop server, such as a server at the e-commerce site TaoBao.com. As the user logs in a related instant messaging server such as AliWangWang associated with TaoBao.com, the instant messaging server requests the online shop server of TaoBao.com to check the user's account name and password, and allows the user to log into AliWangWang upon successful verification. On the other hand, since an auxiliary account is created on the instant messaging system AliWangWang and is only saved in an IM server of AliWangWang, a user of the auxiliary account is unable to log into the online shop server of TaoBao.com.
In general, if one or more auxiliary accounts are created from an account S, the account S is referred to be “primary account”, while the auxiliary accounts may serve the primary account. Users of these auxiliary accounts, however, are only allowed to log into IM, but not into the online shop system. As a result, the users of the auxiliary accounts in the existing systems cannot log in and manage the online shop established by a primary account user.